Sunday, October 04, 2009

 

Water on the Moon

I was a bit disappointed last week when the headline “Water found on the Moon” didn’t occasion newsflashes across all media. Perhaps I really am a space geek and should stop getting so excited about the faint echoes of the golden Space Age.
But now NASA’s probes are about to crash into the Moon’s South Polar area, hoping to throw up a plume of debris and reveal more water than the faint coating on the lunar dust found by Chandrayaan. Since this mission is less susceptible to the new “no, no, we’re all on the same side now, really” space race (NASA vs. China vs. India) it will probably get more media coverage.
Is it good to get excited about finding vital resources on the Moon? Nobody’s suggesting we import water onto Earth, but it could make a permanent Moon colony more viable. And if Helium – 3 really is plentiful up there, it could make a contribution to solving Earth’s energy problems. Though hopefully not using the kind of inhuman set-up we saw in Duncan Jones’s film, Moon.
But there’s a danger of letting space be about nostalgia instead of new challenges (see MOON 40, below). And, apart from Jones’s excellent film, science fiction cinema seems to be dominated by remakes, sequels, rehashes of old ideas. Rather like the actual space programmes that don’t seem to have moved much beyond a remake of the Apollo Missions – only on a smaller budget and with a less ambitious storyline.
That’s why I’m producing a satellite event for the Battle of Ideas called Space – from Infinite dreams to Recurring Nightmares? On October 23rd, in London's Royal Observatory Greenwich, Scientists and science fiction writers will debate whether we need a bit more imagination and ambition, in space as well as fiction. It's part of Sci-Fi London's Oktoberfest Sci-Fi Universe night.
After all, if half of today’s babies are going to live to be 100, they’re going to need some truly inspiring projects to make the most of all that time!

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